Four teams tied for first place

Published: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 10:00 AM.

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Not to mention captivating for the coaches involved in the regular-season title race.

“It’s just going to make things interesting at the end of the year,” East Duplin coach Mark Lane said. “It’s just a strong conference right now.”

Both Lane and Novelli agreed that four teams being tied for first place late in the season — the
ECC
consists of eight teams — doesn’t often happen, and that the cluster at the top shows the balance of the conference.

However, there will be some changes to the standings tonight since East Duplin visits Northside and Clinton travels to South Lenoir. At the end of the night, two teams will be tied for first while two others will drop into a tie for third.

“I think it hit me on the bus ride home (Friday from Swansboro) that we would be playing each other Tuesday,” Lane said. “(Clinton coach Chris Owens) and I always talk after games, and I knew he had lost to Northside. I just knew it was going to be a battle because all four teams are good.”

Chad Novelli makes it a point to scoreboard watch every game night, a habit the Northside first-year girls’ basketball coach said he’s followed since the start of the season.

“I always want to know what’s going on in our league,” he said. “It’s fun to know what going on, but obviously the interest now has peaked.”

Novelli can say that again.

And he likely won’t be the only coach checking his smart phone or computer every night for results, given the competitive nature in the East Central 2-A Conference this season.

Northside (12-3 overall) is one of four teams tied for first place in the ECC, joining East Duplin (13-3), Clinton (12-4) and South Lenoir (11-3) atop the league standings at 5-1 with eight games remaining in the regular season.

“I think it’s really great for our conference to have four solid teams that have a chance to win it,” Novelli said. “It makes it exciting for the fans, and I know it’s exciting for the girls.”

Exciting and fun? Yes.

Nerve-racking? No doubt for coaches.

“It’s stressful, but fun,” Novelli said.

Not to mention captivating for the coaches involved in the regular-season title race.

“It’s just going to make things interesting at the end of the year,” East Duplin coach Mark Lane said. “It’s just a strong conference right now.”

Both Lane and Novelli agreed that four teams being tied for first place late in the season — the ECC consists of eight teams — doesn’t often happen, and that the cluster at the top shows the balance of the conference.

However, there will be some changes to the standings tonight since East Duplin visits Northside and Clinton travels to South Lenoir. At the end of the night, two teams will be tied for first while two others will drop into a tie for third.

“I think it hit me on the bus ride home (Friday from Swansboro) that we would be playing each other Tuesday,” Lane said. “(Clinton coach Chris Owens) and I always talk after games, and I knew he had lost to Northside. I just knew it was going to be a battle because all four teams are good.”

The Panthers are the defending ECC regular season champions. Lane, though, believes his team needs to improve if it is to repeat.

“Our ball handling has to be better than it has been in our losses,” he said. “I think our defense has been pretty good, but our ball handling needs to improve and we need more confidence on offense in order for us to beat these top teams.”

Both Northside and East Duplin took care of business Friday night to forge the four-way tie.

The Monarchs beat Clinton 48-43 in overtime at home while the Panthers won 37-22 at Swansboro. South Lenoir, meanwhile, beat Croatan 42-33 at home.

“Tomorrow is a big one. We have to try to take care of East Duplin at home,” Novelli said. “We still got another shot at South Lenoir at home and we have that game circled. We also need to take care of the games in between.”

Novelli added his team’s victory over Clinton gave the Monarchs plenty of confidence.

“I think we needed it because a lot of our wins until that were all by double digits and our few losses were by single digits,” he said. “We needed a close win against a good team.”

It’s perhaps difficult to tell which team will emerge as the regular-season conference champion since none of the four are undefeated against the other three.

Northside has the win over Clinton, but the Monarchs lost 51-45 at South Lenoir on Jan. 8. The Blue Devils beat the Monarchs, but on Dec. 19 lost 45-41 at home to East Duplin, which lost 53-44 at home to the Dark Horses on Jan. 11.

Confused?

Just be glad then that the second rotation of conference play starts Friday, which means the conference race at the end could be less cloudy since all the teams will play each other one more time. That is until next month’s ECC tournament at Richlands High, which could be an entirely different issue for the coaches.

“As much as I follow basketball for boys and girls, I’ve never seen this before halfway through your conference schedule,” Lane said. “It’s pretty unusual.”